Tag: Faeries

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy
Pub. Date: Jan. 2024

I sound like a broken record, but I cannot get enough of Heather Fawcett’s books! Emily Wilde is her first adult fantasy series and I am obsessed! I’m so glad to see it get such high reviews because I do think it’s the type of series that’s not for everyone. It’s a slow burn read and I don’t think it’s everyone’s type of storytelling because it leaves the reader to work out a lot of the intricacies of the world-building. But I think it’s also why it’s resonating with so many people. 

This fantasy world is a mix of the real world and the faerie world. It’s never quite explained to us, but rather it feels like you’re walking into this fully formed world to discover it for yourself. It’s always going to seem a bit mysterious to the reader, but the people in this world don’t really understand faerie either, so that’s exactly the way it should be!

If you’ve heard the term “cozy fantasy”, this is it. Despite always having the coldest settings in her books, this story is filled with warmth. Choosing to tell the story through Emily’s diary entries definitely isn’t the easiest way to build drama because by the time Emily gets around to writing about the drama, you can be lulled into security by knowing that she has at least escaped and is now safe enough to write about it. But this narration also works so well because Emily has the perfect voice to tell this story. Her logical and scientific mind is able to maintain a certain distance from what’s taking place around her, but her soft heart lends a sweet, emotional aftertaste to the story. 

This is the second book in the series and it picks up more or less where the first book leaves off. Emily, Wendell, and Shadow return in this book, but we are also joined by two new characters, Ariadne and Rose. Rose was a good foil to the story and it was fun to see Emily grapple with her academic pursuits while also trying to wrangle her young and enthusiastic niece, Ariadne. It’s another slow burn story, but somehow, it just works so well with this series.

No fantasy is complete without a romantic side plot and this one is so precious! Where most fantasy heroines these days are fiery and passionate, Emily is methodical and soft. She’s undeniably interested in Wendell, but given the complications of where they are both from, the logical part of her brain very much tries to win out over the romantic part. It’s such a different approach to romance than other popular fantasy series and that’s why I think it’s so refreshing. Emily has a different kind of strength and it’s nice to be reminded that women can be a hero in many different ways. She’s not the ‘chosen one’, she doesn’t have any magic, but she is quietly assured of her good reasoning and intellect and uses her smarts to outwit faeries rather than to fight them.

Anyways, this was a pleasure to read from start to finish. The setting and characters are impeccable. I’m so glad we get to spend one more book with Emily and Wendell and I can’t wait to see where the story will go!

The Cruel Prince

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Author: Holly Black
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Read: Jan. 2018

First off, I definitely liked this. It was an intriguing story with some pretty interesting characters. But I didn’t love it quite as much as I was hoping. This may be a good example of a book where the hype gave me unrealistic expectations. The Cruel Prince only came out the first week of January, but I’ve been seeing so much buzz about it everywhere and pretty much everyone seems to have totally loved it. Like I said, I did actually quite enjoy this book and I will definitely be reading the next one, but it’s one of those 3 stars reads that I liked not loved.

This was my first Holly Black book. I know she’s written a ton of stuff and that she’s quite popular, which surprised me because I didn’t love her writing style. Her writing is very simple and I honestly had to go back to goodreads to check what genres this was listed under because, with the exception of the opening scene (which is gruesome), I felt like I was reading a middle grade novel for the first half of this book. Between Jude’s bullying at school, her boy woes, and the simple writing, I didn’t feel like I was reading a YA fantasy novel.

Anyways, to give you a quick summary, The Cruel Prince is set in the world of the high fae, which is closely linked with the mortal world. The first chapter is stellar and starts off with a brutal double murder and the faerie general, Madoc, dragging Jude and her two sisters back to Faerie to be their surrogate father. Jude and her sister Taryn are both humans and suffer a lot at the hands of the fae. Humans are often enchanted and used as servants by the fae and it’s only Madoc’s status as the general that protects them. They are bullied at school, but Faerie is really all they’ve ever known and they are both desperate to fit in.

Jude wants to prove herself by besting the fae and becoming a knight to the royal family. But she is at odds with the young prince Cardan, who’s in her class at school and it unbelievably cruel. When rumours fly that the high king is going to be abdicating his position to one of his 6 children, Jude gets caught up in the drama and the secret scheming for the crown.

Okay, what did I like about this book? I liked Jude as the narrator. She had spunk and she was quite stubborn, but also ballsy. I also liked Cardan – the book is called ‘the cruel prince’ so you know there’s going to be more to Cardan than meets the eye and I was really intrigued as to what his deal is. I also thought Madoc was a fascinating character, even though I HATED him. I liked Vivi too, so I guess the strongest part of this novel for me was the characters, which is a pretty good because in my opinion, characterization is key.

Things I didn’t like – apparently there’s a few of them. Firstly, I did not like the pacing, which I thought was all over the place. The novel starts off strong with the double murder and then gets ridiculously boring for the first third. Things get super intense again two thirds in with the coronation scene, but then they inexplicably slow down during the last third when the novel should be at its climax! I like a good planner, but I didn’t really like having to read about all the planning in lieu of just reading about the action.

I also thought this book was king of predictable. There was a side mystery going on throughout the course of the book, but I didn’t find it particularly compelling and I found it kind of hard to follow, so I was never really that intrigued in trying to solve the mystery because I never felt like I even really knew what the point was. There were definitely some surprising scenes in the book, but overall I could kind of guess where things were going and I was never really surprised by betrayals because I never trusted any of the characters to begin with.

I can’t decide if I liked the relationship between Jude and Taryn or not. They were really all each other had in the world and I found it hard to believe they would be so at odds with one another.

I’ll give Black props though, this book had a lot of characters and I never had any trouble following along with them all (with the exception of the side mystery element). I love when minor characters matter and I love when they have depth, and Holly Black had both in this novel. The Cruel Prince has the perfect kind of cliffhanger. Black has closed off all her loose ends, but she’s still left a wide up open space for the story to move into. I am genuinely excited to see what’s going to happen with Jude and Cardan in the next book and I really like the dynamic between the two of them. The most disappointing part is that I’m going to have to wait a whole year for the next installment!